Things You Wish You Knew Before Being Infected With the Writing Bug

1) It's addictive.

2) Writers blues can hit you daily.

3) Said blues make you want to stop writing.

4) The blues never disappear

5) The blues can be beaten back with positive comments. And chocolate. And donuts. And icecream. And....[insert food item]

6) If you actually critted your own work, you'd never write again.

7) Two real voices will appear in your head. The first voice always says 'Stop writing! You CAN'T write. You POV hop, You don't write actively. You can't spell. You info dump. You [insert writing weakness here].
The second voice, sometimes drowns out the first. It may not be often, but its message is strong enough to keep you through the times when the first voice says you're useless. 'WRITEWRITEWRITEWRITE. You CAN write better than some of the trash out there. So WRITE!'

8) Once you put up something on CC, you'll want to tear it off the queue, delete it, and chuck the idea out of your head. Unfortuantely, the idea, like the second voice (known as the writing muse), never goes away. It won't until you write it down, revise it, review it, revise it again, and keep revising until you are semi-happy with it.

9) *deleted for the benefit of the Evil Author Code, which states that we should never let our fellow members' egos grow too large*

10) However much you moan, groan and feel like a failure, you keep writing. Because you can't stop.

~written by Yunaleska of Critique Circle